Although the use of technologies like multimedia and virtual reality (VR) in training offer the promise of improved learning, these richer and potentially more engaging materials do not consistently produce superior learning outcomes. Default approaches to such training may inadvertently echo concepts like naïve realism in display design, and desirable difficulties in the science of learning - fostering an impression of greater learning dissociated from actual gains in memory.

This research examined the influence of format of instructions in learning to assemble items from components. Participants in two experiments were trained on the steps to assemble a series of bars, that resembled Meccano pieces, into eight different shapes. After training on pairs of shapes, participants rated the likelihood they would remember the shapes and then were administered a recognition test.

Experiment 1 instructions employed step-by-step diagram versus a video of the shapes being constructed in a VR environment.The results showed that materials from the video did not change learning outcomes compared to the standard, drawing-based instructions. However, the richer materials in the videos did increased confidence in learning.

Experiment 2 compared training viewed within the immersive VR system to the videos. No differences in learning or judgments of learning were found, but a cross-experiment comparison showed the metacognitive judgments were still elevated compared to the static diagrams. Even richer cues in the VR viewing condition did not further accentuate judgments of learning compared to the video. This highlights factors that may and may not influence our sense of learning.

Overall these findings illustrate how future workers might mistakenly come to believe that technologically advanced support is enhancing their learning, even if it does not, and how the design of instruction might be tempted by those same cues towards complex forms of training.

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Ethan Holen